For this day, after eating my, what else, steel-cut oats together with two bananas for breakfast, I started out a bit after 8am and headed for Redmillard Park near San Quentin State Prison and the Larkspur Ferry Terminal. It was street parking for this paddle, on Sir Francis Drake Blvd just east of the park. There were plenty of parking spaces, and no one else was there when I arrived. I chose a spot sufficiently far away from the road, too, which gave me enough peace of mind given the usually high traffic in this area later in the afternoon. If you do come here from the East Bay like I do, leave and get here early. The Richmond 580 Bridge is usually jammed later in the day, as is the west bound of Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
The morning was relatively calm with respect to wind and waves. I launched just a tad after 9am. Low tide of -0.32ft was at 8:09am, and high tide of 4.80ft was expected at around 3:14pm. Below you can see the waterline and beach at roughly 0ft tide. I would be heading left toward San Quentin State Prison, then crossed the channel to the other side and followed the coast down to (hopefully) Paradise Beach County Park in Tiburon. Had I turned right toward the Larkspur Ferry Terminal, I’d have the option to head into Corte Madera Creek, which would have been a much calmer paddle; but that will wait for another day in the near future. I had been warned that the wind would pick up in summer afternoons here, and the clue is in the name of the beach: Windsurfer Beach. It was developed by windsurfers after all =). There were some rowers already on the water prior to my launch, but I did not see anyone else as I paddled out.
Oops! It seems like this post isn't published yet. Stay tuned for updates!As I crossed the channel to the Tiburon side, San Quentin State Prison and the Richmond Bridge were to my left and the Corte Madera Marsh State Marine Park was to my right. Since I launched just shortly after low tides, I soon paddled into shallow water and mud, and had to steer back closer to the main channel. Lots of pelicans (or cormorants?) hanging out here by the marsh, where I could count at least 20 in a couple of groups. Paddling past the marsh a bit and nice-looking hillside houses started to pop up. And then a helicopter showed up, maybe a kayaker is in trouble somewhere? I just hope I won’t be on the evening news on one of my paddling trips anytime in the future.
A bit more paddling led me to the Paradise Cay Yacht Harbor, where I encountered a couple of men fishing from shore near the Tiburon Yacht Club. I waved hello, then had to wait for a boat to come out from the harbor, and another one entering the harbor from the bay. From the harbor, I went past a row of waterfront houses that are part of the Paradise Cay community. Houses here were sold in the $3+ million range recently – not too bad for SF Bay Area standards.
Since I don’t have $3 million for one of the above houses, I moved on and enjoyed less expensive things instead. Just a bit yonder I was treated to an airshow of pelicans, taking the V flying formation very much like what you’d see with jets and planes. A couple of them were swooping over my head, thankfully I had my hat on in case any droppings were thrown my way =D
My phone camera does not do this scene any justice here, but it was quite a magical moment for me with all these pelicans flying overhead. I took out my phone for a snapshot, but this was the best that I could get from that moment.
Since my phone was already out to take pictures of these flying pelicans, I decided to also check on my intended destination of Paradise Beach County Park and saw that it was still a fair distance away. I looked a bit ahead and spotted a couple of secluded beaches, where I could make a quick stop for a bite. Paddling expends more energy than I anticipated, it was a good thing that I had my quick-and-dirty lunch prepared for this trip.
Oops! It seems like this post isn't published yet. Stay tuned for updates!So what did I have for lunch? Well, you can’t get any simpler than this, but I prepared two boiled eggs together with 5 steamed gai lan for my paddling lunch. The preparation was super quick and easy, I could also packed everything into a small container that fits snugly into my Pelican case. It turns out that I liked this lunch so much that I’d probably make it a staple going forward in my future paddles.
I checked the time and it was a tad after 11am that I finished my lunch. From here to Paradise Beach was a little more than a mile, not too long of a paddling distance. The one concern lingering on my mind is the possibility of high wind and strong waves as I paddled back in the afternoon. Since I already ate my lunch, perhaps I could just take a short restroom break at the park and return right away to beat the worsening weather conditions? And for the previous week or so, I have seen alert warnings for personal watercraft to be careful in the San Pablo and San Francisco Bays north of the Bay Bridge once it was past noon time. I decided to push on and carefully monitor the condition as I paddle along.
About half a mile from where I had lunch were many stakes found along the shore. I suspected these are what was left of an old pier? Many pelicans perched on top of these stakes, and I tried to snap a couple of close-ups with my Coolpix P530 camera, but nothing good came out of it. And the beach just off of these stakes? There’s a beautiful beach-front house there, it being one of the nicest looking that I encountered on this paddle. The view out toward the bay and the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is gorgeous from here, and in case you cannot fall asleep, you can always take a scope and start counting cars traversing the bridge; it’s just as efficient as counting sheep, I’d say =D
It’s not easy taking picture on a paddleboard while zooming in at 40x. As the water gently rocked your board, you’d miss your intended target by a mile =) Here I was trying to capture some of the pelicans perching atop the wooden stakes.
And then I saw it: the first sea lion I had seen on these trips this year. Generally the Sausalito Harbor would have been a reliable place to see one, but I didn’t catch sight of any last weekend when I was there. And yet out here far away from any expectation, I ran into one swimming about in the waters. I paddled towards it, but still trying to keep a safe enough distance, and whipped out my phone to snap a couple of pictures. It obliged my curiosity and stayed and posed for me for tens of seconds at a time, then dove underwater and stayed hidden from sight for minutes, only to re-appeared, and repeat the sequence.
I caught sight of a sea lion near the nice house and the wooden stakes with pelicans previously. In the background are Red Rock Island and the Richmond – San Rafael I-580 Bridge.
The sea lion and I played hide-and-seek for a while before I realized I was losing valuable time at this one location. I checked my time again, and decided to head back even though Paradise Beach was only half a mile away. I really didn’t want to deal with the waves and wind at Windsurfer Beach…
And just as I expected, the paddle back was relatively calm until I got to the Paradise Cay Yacht Harbor, where I ran into the same men fishing from shore that I met earlier. I waved hello to them again and … ran into one of their fishing lines =D This had been the second time in as many weeks that I had done this, even though I was paddling sufficiently far away from shore (I think). “I’m sorry,” I said, and back paddled so as to de-entangled my board from the line, then turned my boat further away from shore to not run into anything else. One of the men probably was cursing my name out, or since he did not know my name, all the paddlers in aggregate =D. But I’m telling you this, there’s nothing that a smile cannot solve, and I offered them my biggest apologetic smile that I could produce =D
Then I ran into wind and waves and all that nature could throw at me. Just past the Yacht Harbor was a big, wide open space where the wind would blow me and my board eastward. At first it wasn’t too bad, and I could paddle my board straight forward with some effort. But as I got closer to the Corte Madera marsh (I was still on the Tiburon side), the wind just got stronger and stronger, and the waves bigger and bigger. Since I launched from the beach across the channel, which was to the northeast of where I was, I figured I could use the current (it was flooding tide) and the wind to my advantage, and just bee-lined it to the parking lot. That’s what I did, and boy was it fun! I often heard about downwind kayaking, or surfing, or paddle boarding, etc. Well, I think that’s what I did on this last leg of the paddle.
Oops! It seems like this post isn't published yet. Stay tuned for updates!There were lots of splash from the waves, but all I had to do was to steer the board and let nature did the rest. When I was about 300ft away from the beach, a ferry boat went by and created wakes that, together with the high wind, pushed me ever closer to shore. But all was good and well, as I made it back to my car in one piece. When I got back, there was one windsurfer playing in the channel, and another car loaded with paddleboards just parked behind mine. I wish them luck and loads of fun on their upcoming adventure!
